20 months

I'm a few weeks late in writing this, but let me tell you about Rebecca at 20 months....

 

-She's fussy.  A LOT.  I don't know if it's because she's been sick a lot lately or if it's just a phase, or if it's her budding personality (I sure hope not!).

-She's clingy.  She doesn't do well if I'm busy doing something else.  She constantly wants me to play with her, carry her, hold her, read to her.   Rachel or Daddy will sometimes do in a pinch, but usually it's me she wants, and makes it clear when she's unhappy that she doesn't have my undivided attention.  She does fine, though, when I leave her at the gym playroom or in the nursery at church.  She's always happy to see me when I come back, but she doesn't cry when I leave, so I'm thankful for that.

-She copies everything Rachel does.  Usually all of the wrong things.

-She loves to climb.  Chairs are her specialty.  Oh, and the steps--she's constantly trying to escape up the stairs to get into Rachel's room to bother things she's not supposed to have.  It happens when we forget to put the gate up (which is way too often).

-She talks non stop.  If she's not talking, she's either sleeping, escaping up the stairs, or she's getting into something she shouldn't.  Usually my purse (I can't count how many times I've found her surrounded by my credit cards, drivers license, cash, gift cards, insurance cards, and the rest of the contents of my wallet.  I've learned to put my purse on top of the refrigerator, but I sometimes forget.)

-She runs to me multiples times a day, throws her arms around my legs, and gives me a huge hug and kiss.  She's so sweet like that (when she's not being a little stinker!).

-She has no interest in TV, unless it's the Baby MacDonald DVD from Baby Einstein.  I should be glad (because Rachel has always been obsessed with TV and watches too much of it), but I really, REALLY wish I could put in a show for her and she'd be interested enough in it that I could leave the room for a few minutes and not have her follow me, fussing.  I've tried....she's mildly interested in Sesame Street, but so far I haven't found any other shows that keep her interest for more than 30 seconds.  And she's seen the Baby MacDonald DVD enough that it doesn't hold her attention as much as it once did.

-She wants to eat all the time.  But then when you put her in her high chair to eat, she wants down after a bite or two.  She'd really love it if I just handed her the food and let her walk around with it, but I don't let her. 

-She likes applesauce, yogurt, mandarin oranges, bananas, and graham crackers better than anything else.  She likes vegetables and meat, which seems strange to me, since Rachel's never wanted to touch them with a ten foot pole, but she'd rather have those other things.  She especially likes applesauce and yogurt because she can spoon feed them to herself, but then most of it winds up on her bib and on the table, instead of in her mouth.  But she doesn't want me to help her to get it into her mouth.  That's for babies, not big girls.

-She loves going out to wait for Rachel to come home on the bus.  I usually go out a little bit early, if it's not too cold, because she likes walking along the sidewalk, picking up leaves, rocks, and anything else she can find.  We wait in the driveway of our neighbors, who have twin girls just a couple of months older than Rebecca.  Rebecca remembers that one of their names is Penny, so whenever we get there she says, "Menny!" and runs up to their door.  Sometimes they're both standing there in the doorway (waiting for their big brother, who is in Rachel's class, to come home), and they play games through the glass at each other.  (Poor Izzy....Rebecca will never remember her name!)

-She loves Pooh Bear.  I don't really know why, because she doesn't want to watch it, but she loves him.  Rachel picked out a Winnie the Pooh pillow pet for her for Christmas, and just in the last several days she's started playing with it a lot.  Last night my husband was playing with it with her, and he said, "Do you have any honey?"  Rebecca said, copying Daddy, "Money!  Money!"  "No," Daddy said "Honey!"  "Money!" Rebecca repeated.  So she's already trying to get Daddy's money.....

-She takes her shoes and socks off constantly.  I find socks laying around the house in the strangest places (both hers and Rachel's--Rachel also hates having shoes and socks on.  I don't know where they get this because neither their Daddy nor I enjoy this!).  After she takes them off, she then puts on other people's shoes and clomps around the house. 

-She sleeps with her pink blanket (just like Rachel's beloved purple blanket, which Rachel picked out for her before she was born), and her 101 Dalmation dog.  Those two things have to be in her bed or it would probably be a major catastrophe.  She buries her head in her blanket with her little bottom up in the air and goes to sleep.  She wakes up with the worst cases of bedhead I've ever seen.

-She flits from thing to thing to thing all day long.  She doesn't stick with any one toy, book, or activity for very long.  Probably all part of being 20 months old, but I somehow remember Rachel having more of an attention span than she does.  I guess we'll see.  But what it results in right now is that every room in the house where she is allowed is turned upside down every day.  We call her the human tornado.

Many of these are negative, I've realized.  I don't want to come across that way.  She really is a very sweet girl, but is at SUCH a difficult age, in my opinion.  Maybe because Rachel was my only child when she was this age, I didn't notice it being this difficult with her, but I'm really whipped--all the time.  I don't sleep well anyway, but add to it the fact that she wakes up multiple times a night, and that she wants my undivided attention all the time, and that just compounds how tired I am, constantly.  But all of these little quirks make up the sweet little human tornado named Rebecca Joy.  Oh how I love that girl!